Sea of One-shots
by Thatzly
Summary: Psych one-shots that can't really be stand-alone fics. The genre changes depending on the chapter.
1. The boy who cried wolf

To say Shawn didn't hold even a little bit of resent for Gus was a complete and utter lie. It wasn't Gus' fault of course, even though as a blooming teen in his most awkward stage of life he'd openly accused his best friend of infecting him. In which Gus promptly set him in his place by shooting an, _'It's not contagious, Shawn! It's factored by the environment!' _Shawn had then crossed his arms defiantly across his chest, starting a weeklong hiatus from his buddy.

He'd tried to reason to himself every morning and every night that the inhaler by his bed was useless to him. A month later his dad caught him trying to sell it back to the pharmacy. His attempt was so not worth that two weeks of housework and car washing he'd been sentenced. When Shawn had finally decided to "break" and give in to his new condition, he was waved off almost too easily. '_Nice try, kiddo. If you're having trouble with dust bunnies then there's a mask in the garage.' _Heavy footsteps stormed away, and Shawn made sure his dad heard his irritated grumbles.

The first _real_ attack had his heart pounding in fear. His breathing was erratic, but his dad had only tried to wave off his panicked son again. It wasn't until he'd found Shawn hunched over, hand pressed to his chest and truly gasping for air that Henry had cursed and sprang into action. Even at his worst, Shawn was observant enough to see the tremble in his dad's voice and the slight shake of his hands.

_'The boy who cried wolf'_ is what his dad called him after Shawn was safe and breathing properly. As he lay in bed, trying to coax the fear out of his body, he found himself agreeing with his dad for once. Pretending to have an attack never crossed his mind after that.

They'd thought that the asthma had disappeared since he ceased to have attacks during his road trip days. No amount of smoke, dust, or activity seemed to irritate his condition and that was a triumphant realization. Of course, just like everything else however Gus' trumped him earlier as his had calmed in high school. That didn't stop Shawn from calling his friend and gloating for hours despite the fact that Gus had an exam the next day.

Now, today he was going to take his beautiful girlfriend out on one of their first dates and he couldn't feel any better. But just in case, he still carried a quick-acting inhaler nearby at all times.

"Shawn?"

An elated smile stretched at his lips. "In here, Jules!" When she walked in he froze, his mind unable to process anything more than the outfit she'd chosen to wear for the night. Shawn blinked, and after pulling himself back to fully function he pressed a hungry kiss to her lips. Juliet weaved her fingers through his recently combed hair, mussing it up and wrapped her arm around his neck. She groaned into the kiss and then backed away. "Love the dress," he pointed, his voice deeper than usual.

"Love you," she whispered back as she met his gaze.

Shawn swallowed and led her out and to her car. He took her keys, winking at her. "A gentleman never forces a lady to drive on a date."

Juliet chuckled. "Shawn, I drove here."

"That you did," he smiled. "If it were my choice you would have teleported."

They'd decided on dinner and a movie, the standard date choice, but with them things were never boring. Usually dinner turned to them nearly getting thrown out due to the ridiculous way they turned standard to extravagant fun. But tonight, instead of heading straight home, Juliet decided a walk on the boardwalk was called for.

A normal walk soon turned abnormal when a simple walk had Shawn's lungs working in overdrive. It felt like he'd been running, and yet they'd only made a simple round down the many paths he'd easily walked before. Shawn coughed into his hand, trying to clear his lungs, only to burst into an unexpected coughing fit.

Juliet watched his coughing form growing more worried with each harsh shake of his body. Juliet, the smart one out of them both, took Shawn by the arm and gently forced him to sit on one of the park benches. He was grateful for that, but it still didn't stop his face from exploding into a dark red from the coughing, or help keep a familiar constricting of his chest away. Still coughing, Shawn fumbled with his pants pockets. A surge of panic at the emptiness he grasped onto caused his chest to wind tighter. Relief soon came, flooding his body at the feel of the inhaler in his hand.

He knew Juliet was watching his every move with confusion, possibly wondering where the medical device had come from in the first place. After all, he'd never mentioned it. Shawn forced the inhaler into his mouth and pumped two times, and then another for good measure. Shawn let out a weak laugh once the pain began to dissipate and his panic died down.

"I would have never guessed you would have asthma," Juliet said softly. He would have worried that somehow that fact was a deal breaker if it weren't for her rubbing his back and lightly kissing his cheek.

"I wouldn't have either," he responded back, still breathless from the encounter. "Sexy?"

Juliet shook her head and tried to force out a laugh but couldn't bring herself to enjoy his joke. "More like scary, Shawn. I wish you would have told me so I wouldn't have found out like this."

"It was supposed to be gone."

"Adults can still have asthma…"

"No, I mean it was gone for all these years, Jules! And suddenly it wants to go a second round with me? How is that even fair?" He growled.

"Calm down. You probably shouldn't work yourself up after an attack."

Shawn grumbled and leaned back into the bench. His eyes slid closed and soon he felt a hand tangle with his own. He heaved out a short sigh. "Still can't breathe that well," he admitted.

"When we walk back we'll go slow and take breaks," Juliet answered without even taking much thought. "And tomorrow you schedule an emergency appointment with your doctor."

"Okay," he felt like a child but unlike back then he liked it. No one had ever put this much thought into his condition before except for Gus, and that was only because they both shared it. "Best girlfriend ever."

He could almost see the smug smile tugging at her lips. "Oh, I know."

* * *

He'd made her sign a pact – which he hung proudly on his wall – claiming neither would speak a word to anyone else about his condition. Of course that had made the Detective uncomfortable, but she couldn't convince him that everyone at the station wouldn't see him differently. According to him, only nerds had asthma. He'd then pushed her to tell the entire station that Gus suffered from it, he pushed further by asking her to record their reactions.

But, just because they were in a silly crayon-drawn pact like children didn't make the situation go away. With any cough he made, with every breath he took, she now tuned in, no matter what she'd been doing previously. It was a mystery how she was the only one concerned about the sudden flare up. She wasn't even the one who was asthmatic.

Eventually her frayed nerves broke her down, and she found herself spilling everything to Gus. He hadn't been fazed in the least. _'Tch, serves him right from bragging to me for three hours on the night of my final exam. Three hours, Juliet. I barely got through that test. It's karma come to bite him.' _Gus had then crossed his arms and returned to his real work for his real job, but on her way out she could see him pull up a new search on Google: _Recent medications used to treat asthma_. She smiled and shut his office door. The relationship between Shawn and Gus was strange, but there was no doubt about their love for each other.

When it was time to return to her own job, she slipped from a warm fuzzy mood and into one of fury.

"Shawn!" Juliet stormed over to her desk where an exhausted psychic sat panting through an open mouth. She grabbed his warm face and turned it until he spun in her chair to fully face her. His eyes never met hers, drifting away in shame.

"Hey…Jules…" He greeted, trying to smile. It came out weak and forced. "I…was thinking…let's go…"

"To the doctor," she finished through clenched teeth.

"No!" He gasped with wide-eyes. "To…double-date…Gus…"

"Shawn Spencer, did you go to the doctor? I've been telling you to go for at least two weeks now." Her only answer was his whistling breaths and occasional cough. Another wave of anger shot through her. She hadn't even noticed her grip on Shawn tighten. "Shawn, I'm asking you to do this because I'm worried about you. This is not a joke. Why can't you take this seriously?" He closed his eyes, causing Juliet to huff and back away from him. She placed her hands on her hips, wishing her glare could transmit her thoughts or maybe control minds. "Shawn!"

"Your idiot boyfriend get himself into trouble again?" Her partner laughed as he walked by.

"Carlton!" Her glare worked on him, he stumbled off quietly to his desk.

"Inhaler."

Shawn's voice was so meek that she could barely hear him, but when he thrust out his finger to point out in the direction of his bike she caught on. No more words were needed, before Carlton could question her weird behavior she was already outside digging through Shawn's bike storage. Juliet grimaced, he obviously didn't give much thought to staying in control of his condition, not if the inhaler was stuck in a very awkward, hard to find crevice. She shook it close to her ear once she'd gotten it free and sighed.

By the time she returned, Shawn had disappeared. Wild eyes looked to Carlton for help and he simply pointed. The interrogation room? She stepped inside to be greeted with wheezes she'd never heard come from her boyfriend. Shawn coughed, not bothering to cover his mouth for fear of closing off another way to gasp for air.

Shawn's gaze found her before she could even announce herself. He coughed relentlessly, finishing with harsh whistling wheezes. He grunted and shook an open palmed hand hastily out to her.

"You'll be fine, Shawn, and once you are I'll be right here to tell you 'I told you so'."

He choked back a breathless laugh, and pressed the button down on the inhaler. There were a few moments of Shawn's erratic breaths before he began to relax and his wheezing slowly filtered away. They both stood next to each other, speechless but having to say so much.

"You can take care of your hair but you can't find time to take care of your lungs?"

"Can we not do this now, Jules?" Shawn groaned pathetically. "Even though asthma attacks look fun, I'm telling you now that they hurt like a bitch."

Juliet pursed her lips together, and Shawn knew he'd just ruined anything that'd had planned for the night, or the rest of that week, maybe even two weeks if he didn't start playing his cards right. "Jules, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like—"

"Go home, Shawn. I'm this close to calling your dad," she said with an angry tremble to her voice.

"C'mon, you know that's not cool. Some chick was just wearing too much perfume. I'm fine."

"Your attacks aren't cool! The fact that you hide your inhaler so far away that I could barely find it isn't cool! Dying, isn't cool, Shawn! You're not invincible and you DO have asthma! Get over whatever stereotypes it is that's clogging your head and start doing something for yourself!"

Shawn's frozen form is the last thing she saw of him that day.

* * *

"You know she's right," Gus stated. He'd noticed his best friend had been distracted ever since being chewed out by Juliet. "I'm surprised she didn't slap you."

"The afterglow protection of an attack, Gus. It saved me." Shawn idly tossed his toy frog up in the air, his feet planted on his desk while he leaned back in his chair. "She's being too protective. I've dealt with this before, it's nothing new."

Gus cleared his voice. "Ahem, you didn't deal with it, Shawn. Your dad left me in charge of you. I was the one who really dealt with it."

Shawn paused and caught the frog for one last time before coming down to look at Gus. "Dude, I always wondered how he knew when I'd thrown my inhaler away."

"Actually, that was all him. I spied on other things."

"Man, why am I friends with you!" Shawn joked.

"C'mon son, we both know it was so you could cheat off of me," Gus smiled.

The fake detective looked down thoughtfully at his frog friend and frowned once he came to a painful conclusion. "She's right. I need to take care of my hair and my…nerd problem."

"Nerd problem, Shawn? You mean asthma, a common illness that not only nerds get? I'm pretty sure some powerful athletes even have it."

"It's what's 'in' this year," Shawn grumbled, but his joke came out flat. The more he thought about it the worse he felt. "This is all because of your nerd cooties, Gus…"

"Shawn, I will stab you with this straw."


	2. Hallucinations and Attempted Murder

"Dammit, Spencer," Carlton cursed under his breath. The station hadn't been the same for about two days now, going on three seeing it was almost midnight, and it was all his fault. Who the hell is stupid enough to visit a mountainside in the middle of the night, alone? That question in itself was stupid, however. It was Spencer after all. Sometimes he doubted the existence of a brain in that man's head.

Looking up from his desk briefly, Carlton glanced around the now mostly empty Police Station. The only exceptions were Henry and himself. Now that Spencer had landed himself in the ICU at the hospital, O'Hara was in no shape emotionally to work. Landing him with extra paperwork that they would have usually split. However, Henry was still around for an entirely different reason. Somehow he'd gotten it into his head that Shawn's accident during his idiotic trip alone involved foul play.

But, what more evidence did you need that his reckless son had just been stupid enough to go mountain climbing by himself. It was probably an attempt to impress O'Hara. She'd been begging him to give it a try for weeks, and of course he would probably find looking like an amateur in front of her embarrassing. He probably just went to practice or for some other reason that only _he_ would find rational.

_"Lass.."_

Carlton's head whipped around to stare at Henry. "Did you call me?"

Henry shook his head and adjusted his glasses to better sit on his face. Carlton hummed slightly in response, confused but otherwise undisturbed. It was late after all, hearing things was-

_"...ssie!"_

This time he'd been watching Henry when he'd heard the voice. His lips hadn't moved.

Tossing his pen onto his desk, Carlton stood and grabbed his coat. "See you in the morning, Henry."

He didn't wait for a response before dragging his tired body out the door.

* * *

"Lassie!" A voice called. "Look, Lassie I know you can hear me!"

Carlton shook his head and stared down at his paperwork. Another day, and yet he was still hearing things, and worse was that the voice was more formed. Even the bustle of the station's normal activities didn't drown it out.

"Lassie, I need your help. For some reason, you're the only one who can hear me! Please, Lassie I'm begging."

"I'm hallucinating. I will not talk to a hallucination," Carlton ground out quietly, hoping no one heard him talking to himself. His grip on his pen tightened and he quickly glanced over at where 'Shawn' stood. "You're dead. This is probably just my grieving process."

Shawn held a hand to his heart. "I'm touched Lassie. You're actually grieving over me? You know you don't have to do that, I'm not dead."

"You might as well be!" The detective cried, slamming a hand to his desk. He could now feel the entire station staring at him, prompting him to stand and stalk off to one of the interrogation rooms so he could think.

Unfortunately, Shawn followed. "I'm not dead. I saw myself in the hospital just this morning. I'm in the ICU but I'm not dead."

"You might as well be. You're in a coma, Spencer. Even if you come out of it they say there's a possibility of brain damage." Carlton stopped and sat in one of the cold interrogation chairs. "Why the hell did you do something so stupid? Did you stop to think how this would affect O'Hara? She's a mess. She had to take leave."

"I didn't do anything…" Shawn said softly, crossing his arms. "I take risks, but nothing like that."

"Yeah right, it screamed, 'Spencer did this.'"

"You have to believe me, Lassie! I was set up. They were trying to cover up their murder attempt!"

"I don't have to listen to anything you say because you're not real!" Carlton snapped with a deep growl. "Maybe if you hadn't landed yourself in the hospital half-dead I would believe you!"

Shawn snorted. "Come on, son. You wouldn't have believed me either way."

The lean detective leaned back in his chair with a smirk. "Maybe you are the real thing," he joked sarcastically.

"Think, Lassie. Why would I go rock climbing in the dark?"

"You're an adrenaline junkie."

"My motorcycle is the only adrenaline I need. If I wanted to go rock climbing I'd have signed up for a class or gone at a _normal_ time with Jules." Shawn sighed and rubbed his face. "I went there on my own, yeah, but only because I knew our suspects had a dumping ground close-by. I was gonna take Gus but he was too busy trying to put the moves on some girl he'd just met. The suspects got the upper-hand on me and tried to make it look like I tripped and hit my head or something."

"Why am I still listening to you?"

"Because you want to believe that I'm real and because I'm making perfect sense," Shawn explained. "Which I am real by the way, but I'll let you think for a while, I want to go check on Jules and Gus."

With that, Shawn disappeared. Carlton blinked, well that didn't help him with his whole hallucination theory.

"Maybe we should make a wolf call, like in Zelda," Shawn suggested as he leaned against the wall, reappearing as if it were a normal occurrence.

"Stop being ridiculous. It's bad enough I'm talking to your spirit or whatever."

"Oh come on! Please!"

"No, now go away so I can work."

Shawn pouted. "Fine but when you need me I won't be there, and all because we don't have a wolf call."


End file.
